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CNN Live At Daybreak

Skakel Trial Testimony Begins Today

Aired May 07, 2002 - 06:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Another high-profile trial we are following, that of Michael Skakel, a Kennedy relative. He is accused of the 1975 murder of a young neighbor girl. The killing occurred in Greenwich, Connecticut when both Skakel and the victim, Martha Moxley, were 15. Testimony in the trial begins today.

Our Deborah Feyerick has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She was an all-American honors student with a bright smile. He is related to all-America royalty, Martha Moxley and Kennedy nephew, Michael Skakel, both 15 years old in 1975. Friends and neighbors hanging out together the night before Halloween, the last night Martha Moxley was alive. She was brutally beaten to death with a golf club, the killer attacking her right outside her posh Greenwich, Connecticut home.

There were suspects at the time, Skakel's 17-year-old brother, Tommy, once though to have been the last person to see Moxley alive; also a Skakel family tutor, Ken Littleton. He moved in with the Skakels the day of the murder. Investigators never had enough evidence to charge either one, and the murder remained unsolved for two decades.

But interest in the case never went away. There were books, movies and TV who done its, like "Unsolved Mysteries."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the night before Halloween, 1975...

FEYERICK: New witnesses came forward, and their testimony pointed to now middle-aged Michael Skakel. He was charged with Moxley's murder. After several hearings, the case moved out of juvenile to adult court. Not charged: the original suspects, Skakel's brother, Tommy, and tutor, Ken Littleton.

Littleton will likely take the stand early on in the trial, prosecutors granting him full immunity. Skakel's defense team is planning on playing tapes they say incriminate the ex-tutor. Littleton's lawyer firing back...

EUGENE RICCO, KEN LITTLETON'S ATTORNEY: It's a strategy that defense, considering the history of this case, is certainly going to do. I mean, it's no surprise the state investigated Littleton in terms of this homicide for years.

FEYERICK: Prosecutors admit investigators recruited the tutor's wife in the early '90s to try to convince Littleton he confessed to the murder during a drunken blackout. The story sounds familiar. At a hearing last year, former classmates testified Skakel confessed that he might have had something to do with the murder, also during a blackout. One of those witnesses saying the word "blackout" was originally used by investigators.

MICKEY SHERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: The question is, isn't it odd that what they have against Ken Littleton, they seem to have against Michael Skakel.

FEYERICK (on camera): The jury is made up of six men and six women, one is a Spanish teacher; another is a lawyer. There is even a police officer. The trial is expected to take five weeks with one of the first witnesses on the stand, Martha Moxley's mom.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Norwalk, Connecticut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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